Greetings to Senators Howard Baker and Nancy Kassebaum Baker. And to Dr. Cheek and other education leaders from around the state, thank you for having me here today.

I'm honored to be a part of the Distinguished Baker Lecture series. And I am thrilled to have this opportunity to talk about how Tennessee is helping to lead the nation to where we need to go in education.

The U.S. Department of Education announced today that its Office for Civil Rights has reached a resolution agreement with the Memphis, Tenn., City Schools on aids and services to students with disabilities.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that Tennessee will receive $67.8 million to turn around its persistently lowest achieving schools through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. These funds are part of the $3.5 billion that will be made available to states this spring from money set aside in the 2009 budget and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools has awarded Knox County Schools in Knoxville, Tennessee, almost $50,000 to assist with ongoing recovery efforts following a school shooting in early February that left the principal and assistant principal seriously wounded.

U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that an additional $255,794,562 is now available for Tennessee under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. To date, Tennessee has received $1,569,579,787 through the Recovery Act. The state recently reported that recovery dollars have been used to provide funding for more than 3,700 education jobs from Oct.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) today announced the award of five charter school grants, totaling $82 million, to state education agencies in Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin to increase public school options in those states.